


refinement : reduction

by patrokla



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Introspection, M/M, Mid-Season, Other, where's quentin's head at these days? nowhere good
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-02
Updated: 2019-04-02
Packaged: 2020-01-01 00:11:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18324785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/patrokla/pseuds/patrokla
Summary: It's all very simple: the monster wants.





	refinement : reduction

**Author's Note:**

> I've been making my way through the Magicians for the last few weeks and have a lot of thoughts and somehow they manifested as this.
> 
> No particular warnings for this; many bad things are implied but not at all spelled out.

The monster wants. That is the foundation of Quentin’s understanding of it, from even before he was Quentin again and was just Brian, a terrorized, terrified man. Brian had sunk into numb acceptance after a few weeks with the monster and its endless, vast wanting. Brian had quickly understood what Quentin still struggles with after months: that the wanting of the monster is an unstoppable force capable of moving any object.  
  
The monster wants a friend. It isn’t capable of, or perhaps just refuses to entertain itself. It wants an endless supply of ‘friends’ that it can poke and prod and slice until it’s time for a new one. Quentin thinks, sometimes, that it doesn’t want to be alone. Quentin thinks, sometimes, that he understands this. It’s not nice, being alone.  
  
The monster wants Quentin. It wants Quentin however it can get him, in any way it can think of. It wants the whole of him, his fear, and sadness, and love, and _attention_. Quentin knows that if those things could be distilled into a beating organ, the monster would’ve removed it long ago. But they can’t, and so the monster keeps Quentin at its side and s c r a p e s at him to get his reactions. It turns Quentin into raw, trembling strings and plays him. It doesn’t understand that strings inevitably break or get loose and slack and incapable of producing sound. It has no patience for tuning.  
  
~~Quentin wants~~  
  
~~Quentin~~  
  
Quentin needs Eliot back. He’s not sure when the whole of his being was refined into a single sharp point of longing, but he’s incapable of becoming greater than that again. He needs Eliot to exist in this world even if Quentin doesn’t because otherwise what was the point of any of this? The idea had always been that no matter what Quentin did or didn’t do for the monster or with the monster or to the monster, at least Eliot would be free to live his life. That was the idea, that was the plan, and all the other plans that don’t end in Eliot choosing and becoming and living a real, full life are useless to Quentin. It’s all very simple.  
  
Quentin needs Eliot. The monster wants Quentin. The monster wants a friend. The monster wants. The monster is wanting, and hurting, and Quentin understands what it is to be alone.  
  
He doesn’t want to be alone either.


End file.
